Written in the Sand
by Midnight Meadows
Summary: Somewhere in the Nevada desert, half a mile below the surface, the pilot of Evangelion Unit 04 struggles to survive his daily existence, which is about to change forever.


_TEXT TAKEN FROM ORIGINAL POSTING ON DARKSCRIBES  
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**Author's Notes:**

So this one requires a bit of explanation. (It's legitimate this time, trust me)

My original plan of thundering into the community and dropping down a massive, epic story in one shot after years of lurking never really panned out. My apologies to all the writers out there who heard me out through my nonsense-spewing stages when I was trying to remove all traces of Gary Stu from my story. I finally manned up and realized that the entire premise of _"Promises to Keep_"was flawed to the core, so I started over.

The body of text below was written (as a huge cop-out) for a creative writing class I took two semesters ago. We were tasked with writing a 15 page fiction story and creating all of the characters in it. I was uninspired, so I decided to use it as a chance to flesh out the ideas and characters that had been bouncing around in my head but I'd never had the time or chance to really write.

It went over well, however due to the 15 page restriction (and my teacher wouldn't have any of it when I told her I was going to write something closer to 30+ pages), the story feels horribly condensed and rushed. I also wrote it trying to disguise it from being recognized as an EVA story, so some of the background exposition you might think is just obvious for someone who's seen EVA is still in there and won't be taken out. Lots of word-replacements were made, though. Have fun trying to guess what they were.

I'd like you to think of it this way: this story is to its full version what a halloween-sized Snickers bar is to the big kind you get at the supermarket checkout line. Feel me? Still has the same taste and a lot of the same elements, but it's nowhere near as long and good.

The story is set during the timeframe of the original TV storyline, this isn't some kind of AU nonsense. It's an untold story that takes place in a particularly fascinating gray-area of the EVA metaseries.

But enough of my rambling, please read it with all of the above in mind, and maybe if enough people want me to I might strap myself to the Author's Chair for a while and try to make the full version happen someday.

Lastly, two colossal shout-outs to: **FreshC** for brainstorming the title with me and giving me all sorts of savvy feedback, and to **Eric **'**_The Blair_**'** Blair** for helping me talk out the majority of the plot points of the full version.

**Disclaimer:**

All of the fictional characters represented in this work ARE 100% MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. Hah! Feels good to be able to say something like that in the disclaimer for an EVAfic. Obviously, some of the other ideas I borrowed aren't mine, but you know that.

Without further ado I present the Sue-fee, polished, critiqued, and 'trailer-sized' version of:

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"Written in the Sand"

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He was having another relapse.

Not the serious kind...the kind that would necessitate a crash-cart or syringes filled with sedative.

Scratch that.

It was serious, but only to him, only to his resolve.

An episode that threatened to make that resolve crumble and scatter to the winds like the sand and dirt that stirred a half a mile above him on the surface...while he was down here in this steel prison.

_No! Don't think like that_.

The dull metallic walls he was normally able to look upon with a sense of complacency-the ones that gave form to the humble room he'd slept in every night for the past three years-they seemed to bare down on him, even though they did not move.

It was their presence.

The presence of this place and its cold spiderweb of hallways and vacuous rooms. The sheer calculated nature of its very form: it really was a prison.

_It's not! Stop it! Just get a hold of yourself. Push it back and fight it._

Wrong idea.

The dark-haired teenager had been pacing, but his frail form now knelt on the ground, hands braced like claws against its hard surface.

He wanted nothing more to tear away at it, thrash about wildly.

He wanted to rip the door from its hinges and run.

Run until his limbs gave out and his lungs burned for air.

_That won't accomplish anything and you know it. You've tried it before._

Right.

All the more reason for him to seethe and rage.

He felt the familiar tears welling up in his eyes, hot streams soon to carve their way down his cheeks.

_You can't let it get to you. Every time you do this, you're just a step closer to forfeiting the little hope you have._

Hope? Hope had no meaning anymore down here.

He felt he would never get out, despite what they told him.

That contract he'd signed had been trick--he was dead and this underground jail was his coffin.

_It's only a prison if you let it be. The physical body may be held here, but they can never imprison the mind._

The words cut effortlessly through the darkness he felt.

He had long since forgotten where they came from, or if he'd even heard them somewhere in the first place.

_Your thoughts are your own and nobody else's. Make them your fortress, and remember the dream._

The dream...that's right.

What was it again?

He closed his eyes and clutched his face with his hands.

Sunlight.

A cool breeze.

The air perfumed with the smell of an old memory.

Leaves swaying gently in the trees above while he lay in the grass.

She held him in her arms and the sound of her voice soothed his heart.

A kind face--his mother's.

One he loved.

Peace.

His muscles began to un-tense, and he slumped over slightly as the threat of body-retching sobs dissipated.

Drawing in a breath that was forced, laborious, and uncertain, he put his legs to work once again, although they seemed to doubt the ground and wavered momentarily.

The boy stared down at the tears that had spattered onto the floor and the fluorescent light that glinted off of the small droplets. With one sweep of his foot he scattered them, smearing the wetness across the cold floor.

Glancing at the clock on the desk next to him and making note of the time, he grabbed the dull green jumpsuit hanging over the edge of the bed. After hastily shuffling his way into it, he drew up the zipper and sped out through the door, which swung closed behind him with a hollow thud.

_--------------------------------_

Miles Atherton sat with his eyes closed, brow knotted in concentration, inside the cockpit of what was arguably one of the most advanced technological accomplishments in the history of mankind.

The electric hum of instruments washed over him, numerous display panels and digital gauges flickered in the dim light of the small enclosure that housed the seat he occupied. His grip on the molded grooves of the two side-sticks was firm but not strained.

If it were anywhere else, he would have felt just as displaced and alienated as he always did; but not here. Here, he felt a sense of security he had been robbed of so long ago-that nothing bad could come to him so long as he dwelled there. He knew ever since they'd put him there for the first activation test, felt it when the circuits jumped to life, a pulse coursing through the network of wires: the faintest whisper of something lost echoed from the depths of this machine.

It made no sense to him that here, of all places, he would find solace where he had instead expected only to find more of the emptiness he'd grown so accustomed to floating through as the days went by. And in this place of solitude, his own shelter from the cold world that awaited him afterwards, he sat and meditated.

_One hundred and forty four days, sixteen hours, thirty eight minutes, and twelve seconds._

"Miles..."

_One hundred and forty four days, sixteen hours, thirty eight minutes, and ten seconds._

"Miles...can............hear...........interfer-......"

_One hundred and forty four days, sixteen hours, thirty eight minutes, and eight seconds._

"Miles, I know............focused......but.......need......to..listen...now."

_One hundred and forty four days, sixteen hours, thirty eight minutes, and six seconds._

"Miles, we're getting a lot of thought-noise in our readings and it's starting to throw off the calibration process. Can you hear me?"

The boy sighed, his concentration broken, and finally gave heed to the voice that nagged for his attention over the communications channel.

"Yes, Eric, I'm not deaf," he grumbled, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. He knew the internal camera feeds were on.

A blank screen in the periphery of his vision flicked on and revealed the grainy image of a middle-aged man. He sported a lab-coat, sleek black hair, and a pair of glasses that seemed to frame his face just right. He adjusted them slightly, pushing them up the bridge of his nose and smiling a bit to himself.

"Just making sure," the man said in a tone that was painfully reassuring, "Can't have you focusing too hard--makes all kinds of lovely spikes in the neuro-encephelograph. Five more minutes to go, keep it up."

"Really, is that all?" Miles donned an obvious forced smile, voice laced with sarcasm, "I was hoping we could go for a double dose of harmonics today and skip tomorrow's. You're good for another hour, aren't you Eric?"

The technician smirked back at him, "As always. But I'm afraid the rest of the nice people here have other shifts to make, and I can't run this show single-handedly. See you on the struts after cooldown."

He cut the feed and the screen shut off.

The first time Miles had met Dr. Eric Darkwood was on the day his mother died.

Alice Atherton had been ill for several months up until then, fighting a losing battle against chronic lymphocytic leukemia in its final stages. Her strength was waning and she no longer had the ability to protect her son as she'd done for so many years by herself, so all she could do now as her body silently wasted away was hope she'd made the right choice for him by signing the contract.

The men from this organization called "T.E.T.R.A."--a strange military base hidden half a mile below the ground somewhere in the Nevada desert--had promised that she'd receive the best treatment possible...and Miles would have the privilege of participating in a unique new pilot program, also receiving all the necessary amenities to live comfortably.

That was three years ago, and Miles still felt a dull ache in the pit of his stomach every time he saw Eric, a faint reminder of the time the man had sat him down to explain what had become of his mother. To his knowledge, the bespectacled man would not be bringing him any bad news today, unless Miles had somehow screwed up during the synchronization testing.

But he knew that wouldn't happen: he never made any mistakes.

Eric was already waiting for him out on the long stretch of iron scaffolding adjacent to the control room he'd been overseeing the testing from just a few minutes ago. He leaned over the railing casually, gazing off into the distance as the fluorescent light from overhead glinted off the polished rims of his glasses. Miles walked up next to him silently and took a similar position along the railing, turning his head to follow Eric's line of view.

Before them in the vacuous expanse of the steel-paneled chamber stood a lanky metal giant.

Some 100-meters in height, it was a humanoid shape whose limbs and torso seemed just a little bit more elongated than they should have been.

The machine, which stood there motionlessly while orange-jumpsuit-wearing technicians bustled about it on the nearby scaffolds, looked as though someone had taken a skeleton and encased it from head to toe in a highly aerodynamic suit of armor plating. All of the panels fit together and overlapped neatly; their silvery, brushed-titanium surface shimmering faintly in the light.

Its head slumped forward a little, but not completely, so it gazed downward at Miles and Eric. The eye holes in its armor were black and expressionless, and the lower half of the paneling seemed to give it the look of a mouth that curved up the side of its face in a jagged, angular grin.

Its simple name, shamelessly unbefitting of the next paradigm in global warfare, was engraved and painted in jet black on the shoulder pauldrons and forearm plates:

**UNIT-04**

Miles had been awestruck the first time he'd been brought down here to gaze upon it, but the novelty had long since worn off once it became a regular part of his daily reality.

Now, as he stared at the statue that could only move while he was sitting inside it, words formed on the back of his tongue and Miles knew exactly what he was going to say next.

"Eric," he began, breaking the silence that shrouded them, "Why is it called Unit 04?"

He knew the answer already, he wasn't asking because he wanted to know anymore. It was a little game he played with the doctor whenever they stood here like this. He knew the answer, but he always asked just to hear Eric say it. The doctor, having been roused from his trance, stirred to life as he let out a light chuckle, "Oh Miles...why else? It isn't the only one that's been built."

Miles had to look away quickly, since Eric had turned to him and was smiling his Eric-smile.

That same smile he was smiling when they'd met that day three years ago.

A smile that would forever say something different than its true meaning.

It was that smile he hated the most.

_--------------------------------_

The pilot and the doctor stood on the moving walkway that carried them into the opening of a wide cylindrical chamber that extended far into the distance above and dead-ended a few floors below. There were dozens of levels of balconies and walkways all interconnected and crossing over one another like a mass of cables that had been tangled together and stretched across the expanse of the room. People in lab coats, jumpsuits, and military uniforms were bustling about going from place to place along the walkways, in and out of rooms, disappearing down tunnels that connected to this central atrium. Everything was sleek, metallic, well-crafted. Function over form was the M.O. here, but all of that function gave it a form that was truly unique.

Miles fidgeted absent-mindedly with one of the connection sockets on his nervesuit: a network of microprocessors and fiber-optics embedded in a skintight synthetic polymer weave that bore a striking resemblance to the full-bodied wetsuits surfers wore.

"Are you upset with me for some reason, Miles?"

"No, Eric. You're my friend, why would you think that?"

Friend. Something he'd been for a long time, something that Miles only really had one of now. Recently, he'd found himself wondering whether Eric was his friend because he genuinely wanted to be, or only because he was required to. He'd never be able to bring himself to ask, though.

"You seem a bit distant, that's all. Merely an...mmh...observation." Eric always paused like that when he was choosing his words carefully.

"More distant than usual, Mister Darkwood?"

"Yes...more distant than usual, Mister Atherton."

"I'm just spent, that's all. 5am combat drills with Colonel Jacobs were brutal today."

"Ah, of course. And you should be glad for it!"

"Excuse me?" Miles said flatly.

"You should be glad. The practice will serve you well for the surface deployment next week."

"Come on Eric, don't mess me around like that. What's really on the schedule? Triple harmonics? I bet that's wha-"

The teen was stunned silent as the man produced a small booklet from his coat pocket. The gold embossed text on it read: "T.E.T.R.A. Pilot Operations Manual Directive 642A9"

"No way. No bloody way!" he gasped, "You said we couldn't do one for _at least _another two months because of all the shit the security division gave you before."

Darkwood responded with all the appropriate smugness, "Well, I _am_ the senior project director after all. We'll learn quite a bit from four hours of advanced systems benchmarking and live-fire preparation on the airstrip. Time to start getting serious now."

He had started to say something else, but Miles could only stare rapturously at the official booklet he clutched in his hands.

This was it, he could stretch his legs and see the sun again.

It was his ticket to the playground.

_--------------------------------_

Miles was practically bouncing in the cockpit seat as he listened to the loud whirring and clanking of the lift that carried him upwards, and the large bulkhead gates that opened slowly overhead as each checkpoint was passed.

His fingers were tapping anxiously on his knees, their fervor increasing with every status report called out over the communications channel between the technicians monitoring the ascent and the command center team down below.

Most of the feedback circuits were shut down right now, otherwise Unit 04 would have looked ridiculously absurd-fidgeting about just as Miles was.

That was how Unit 04 worked: it did what he did, or rather, what he thought.

All he had to do was imagine himself performing the action, and Unit 04's gargantuan limbs would mirror it with the same precision. He never understood how he could feel so connected to a machine like this, even with the strange suit he had to wear, the level of body-displacement he felt when he closed his eyes was surreal. Normally, the confines of the cockpit were quite unremarkable except for the instruments, but when the systems were fully online and the dynamic display was enabled, he had a 360-degree view of everything around him. Combined with the nerve feedback he got, it was as though his own body had become that of the machine he piloted.

Miles looked upwards and the display re-aligned to match his gaze-Unit 04's gaze-and gave him a perfect glimpse of the last gate opening, letting the sunlight stream in as it widened. He strained to keep from blinking as his maladjusted eyes reeled from the sudden flood of brightness. Miles was determined not to miss a single moment of it.

He could almost smell the heat radiating off the ground as he stepped off the lift out onto the decaying tarmac of the old airstrip. Unit 04's lumbering strides gently rocked the earth below, and Miles looked around to drink in the sight of the distant hills, the expanse of desert, and the pale salt flats of what he was told used to be GroomLake.

Eric wasted no time jumping onto the communications channel.

"Alright, Miles, you've got the protocols for this one memorized. I'll be on the comm if you need me, but for now just start running through the drills so I can monitor the readings."

"Aye-aye captain. How soon until we get to the fun stuff?"

"The unmanned artillery units are deployed and stationed in various places within a 5 mile radius. You're probably picking up some of them on the sensors already. We'll issue the firing command once the kinetics benchmark session is done. Of course, you won't be told which ones will shoot first."

"That's more like it," the pilot smiled to himself, taking up the sidesticks, "All systems green here, let's go!"

The silver titan broke into a run down the airstrip, digging its heels into the ground as it reached the end and pivoted to sprint back to the opposite end. It did this several times, as well as a number of other maneuvers: dives, handsprings, rolls, and just about every type of physical motion you can devise a way to make repetitive. The ground was torn up all around in the various spots where Unit 04 impacted it, and as exhausting as it was, Miles loved every single moment.

Before he knew it, a proximity warning on the radar began to blare just as he was coming out of a dive-roll. He managed to regain his footing just as he saw the blur of the missile streaking by out of the corner of his eye. A wicked grin spread across the teenager's face as he spread the AT-Field and watched the missile go motionless in the air, making ripples in an invisible surface fixed roughly ten meters away from Unit 04's face. Eventually its thruster burned out and the missile fell lifelessly to the ground.

The AT-Field was what made Unit 04 the special, magnificent weapon it was. Miles couldn't describe how it worked, beyond what Eric had said to him when he was learning to use it: "You have to reach down inside yourself, right in the center of your chest, and find a strong emotion. When you do, you breathe out deeply and surround yourself with it." It had taken a long time for Miles to learn how to use this mysterious technique, but when he did it felt like the most natural thing in the world. All he had to do was draw upon that wistful sense of comfort he felt when he was connected to Unit 04-that was the feeling that gave the AT-Field its strength.

The artillery bombardment had begun, and soon missiles and shells and machinegun fire were raining in on Miles from unknown points of origin on all sides. He laughed with glee as he watched the bits of metal and lead twist and bend as they smashed up against the AT-Field, his timing for each was perfect for the intervals they came at. There were a couple of near-misses, ones that Miles almost didn't catch; he instantly knew Eric had set them up that way, and was probably having himself a good laugh down there. After a while, there was a long break in the incessant shelling and Miles paused to take a breath and survey the pile of broken projectiles that was steadily expanding around him. He started to wonder if it was already time, and was about to page in on the comm. when a loud rumbling in the distance answered for him. Miles turned around and saw a large fiery trail of smoke cresting the hills in the distance, his targeting system immediately zoomed in on the object and began analysis.

"Target Identified: LGM-30 Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile" the onboard computer announced in its synthesized voice.

"What..." Miles stammered as he watched it arc downwards on a path towards the airstrip, "What the hell...**ERIC!**"

"Yes Miles?" came the immediate response over the comm. as the doctor opened a visual channel.

"Am I wrong here, or did you just launch a nuclear warhead at me?"

"Indeed I did. Not to worry though, it isn't carrying any payload," he chuckled, "Just thought I'd throw you a nice big fish to tackle. Have fun!"

_Cheeky bastard'_, Miles thought, _I was right, he's totally hamming it up_.'

Miles would give the good doctor the proper amount of grief for it later, but for now his attention turned back to the five-story-tall projectile that was rocketing towards him.

"Okay Atherton," he muttered to himself, rubbing his hands together, "No big deal. You've handled torrents of the small stuff, this shouldn't be that much different. Just focus, and shred the sucker."

Unit 04 lowered its stance and braced itself, digging its feet as much as possible into the ground.

Miles reached deep and put his hands out to spread the AT-Field full force in front of him. The ICBM was there within seconds, and as it collided, the sheer force of the impact actually pushed Unit 04 backwards. The missile strained against the air, the vibrations creating ripples that blurred Miles' vision of it. It was like a reverse game of tug-of-war, and Miles fought with all his might against it.

_"Come on you stupid thing. Yield! Just go down already!"_

Suddenly, the proximity sensor alarms started blaring loudly, and Miles' attention instantly shifted to the space behind him he'd left unguarded. Another missile identical to the one he had been holding off was now seconds away from a direct grimaced and only had a fraction of a second to try and extend the AT-Field out in its direction: when it hit, it only wavered in place for a brief moment before tearing right through.

The blood froze in his veins. All he could do was watch as the missile splintered against Unit 04's torso, knocking the wind out of him with its vicious force. And then something happened that he knew wasn't possible, shouldn't be possible. All too real, it shouldn't be this real. He could feel all of it. He watched in horror as a white flash of light heralded the eruption of a torrential fire from the rocket's torn fuselage. He felt the inferno engulf every inch of his body. He watched his armor plates disintegrate into thin air. He watched the skeleton get ripped apart in the blaze. He saw...blood?

And then for a moment, the display was static-like on a television.

When his heart ceased pounding like a jackhammer in his chest, what he saw was no longer the burning planes of the Nevada desert.

It was the cold metallic walls of the primary hangar down below.

He laughed dryly, and lost consciousness.

_--------------------------------_

Miles sat in the darkness, legs hanging off the scaffolding as he glared disconsolately back at Unit 04. It was late and he couldn't sleep, so he had retreated to the heights of the hangar as he often did at night. Security never seemed to care much that he did it. His mind began to wander back through the events of the prior six hours:

_The rescue and medic team pulling him out of the cockpit._

_Eric rushing up to explain what had happened._

_The truth that it had only been a simulation._

_Feeling returning to his limbs, and the rage._

_Pure, violent fury that made him scream as his lungs filled with air._

_How he thrashed, flailed, kicked until he blacked out again._

Miles didn't care if it was all just an elaborately engineered training exercise, or that he'd been duped into thinking he was ready for that kind of scenario.

What angered him the most was that in those final moments he was certain his life was forfeit, and that they'd done everything to convince him it really was before lifting the curtain.

As he sat there in deep thought, the silence was suddenly broken by the sound of loud footsteps that echoed up from the floor level of the hangar. Then there were voices, two men: they were yelling.

"This is insane, Darkwood! I can't let you do this! Not after all we've accomplished."

"I've told you already, the results of today's test speak for themselves. This is the only way."

"Bullshit! You know it's not as bad as you make it sound. You of all people should know!"

"The Committee has ruled that the project is a lost cause, and have tasked me with the immediate cleanup effective tomorrow."

"All these years...I can't believe you're buying into this double-dealing, cloak-and-dagger bullshit! I don't know what they've promised you, but it's all lies!"

"No, sir, I'm afraid not. The only lies here are...mmh...yours."

Then there was a loud bang, and a flash of light. In that flash appeared the image of Miles' friend and mentor pointing a gun at a man he did not know, and that man falling to the ground. Miles clamped a hand over his mouth to prevent the gasp that rose in his throat from escaping, and stared into the restored darkness for several moments before he arose. He moved carefully along the scaffolding towards the nearby door and was grateful he hadn't changed out of his suit earlier, since the light padding underfoot helped mute the sound of his steps. When he had reached the threshold after what seemed like years, he broke out into a desperate run and did not look back until he had slammed the door to his quarters and bolted it shut behind him.

_--------------------------------_

Early the next day there was a scheduled synchronization test.

He was summoned at the usual time and arrived at the hangar when he was supposed to. Eric was there already, and he seemed to betray no hint of anything being out of place as he swooped around the control room to check on each of the technicians at their consoles.

Miles' mind had been racing since last night...he hadn't slept at all.

The scene he'd played witness to kept repeating over and over again in his head for hours.

He lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling of his small room. Staring through it, staring past it.

Something was wrong, something was very wrong.

The "test" yesterday.

What that man had said before Eric killed him.

What Eric had said about today.

All of it.

Thoughts had finally settled in his mind and a plan had taken shape. Now as he walked down the junction bridge to climb into Unit 04 for what was supposed to just be a routine synchronization, he repeated the steps to himself:

_Activate, Issue the manual override, Break the safety restraints, Destroy the Control Room, Smash through two walls north, three walls west. Trip the emergency circuit on the Surface Lift. Deploy the AT-Field. Pray._

Over and over again, these were his thoughts while he struggled to keep a straight face and fought the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He had nearly reached the steps to climb into the cockpit, when something white obstructed his path, forcing him to look up.

"Hello Miles," said Eric.

"H-hi there," the young pilot replied slowly, "Shouldn't you be in the control room?"

"Oh yes, but I stepped out for a minute to come see you," he took a step towards Miles, "I wanted to apologize again for what happened yesterday. Today should be much nicer. No tricks, honest."

Miles had regained more of his composure by now, but still stood rigidly as the doctor placed a hand on his shoulder, "It's fine. Really. I'm fine. It was just a training exercise."

"That's right, just a training exercise," his mentor reassured.

Eric then walked past Miles, folding his arms calmly behind his back as he did. The young pilot relaxed more with each step he took. But then the steps stopped.

"Ah, one more thing before I go."

Miles turned slowly to face him, "Yes?"

A wide grin spread across the doctor's face as he spoke, "Do your best. Like always."

It was in this instant that Miles was finally able to comprehend that Eric-smile he knew so well.

After having seen all he'd seen, its meaning was now more transparent to him than glass, and it made him shudder.

Miles climbed into the cockpit, sealed the hatch behind him, strapped himself in, and waited as the activation process began. The startup announcements on the comm. link were his countdown.

"95.6 points" -_Four_.

"97.3 points" -_Three_.

"98.9 points" -_Two_

"99.2 points" -_One_

"Optimal synchronization limit reached."

_Go_.


End file.
